The thing is, Ontario (or at least, certain boards of education - the protocol is in effect for all of them, but several aren't being as thorough about it as my board) has a curriculum in place that challenges a lot of this thinking. Many of the trends I'd like to buck are already being bucked here - I learned about them first at Board-sponsored in-services. While the highest level of the grading system is still in place, my kids and I together come up with many of the criteria for judging work. The language expectations are all about the strategies that good readers use to understand, connect to, discuss, and write about what they read, in a reflective manner. My assessment is supposed to be cyclical instead of linear - that is, instead of teaching a few lessons and then quizzing the kids to see what they've learned, I'm assessing what they're getting and what they're not, every single day, and I don't give them a final assessment until I know most of them have learned it. It's been two years since I stopped putting grades at the top of everything - if I don't plan to record a mark, I don't give one, just feedback in words based on criteria we established as a class. Higher-order questions about literature are the norm in my class, and in my school, and they're becoming the norm in my board and province.
If anywhere in North America can succeed at bucking the Traditional Schools model, it's right here, because we're more than halfway there already.
BTW, I don't believe it's a good idea to believe smart kids will learn on their own and everyone else never will. First, it assigns my job to total irrelevance, and I've got too strong a sense of self-preservation for that. :) Second, it's not backed up by research - good teaching for five years in a row does overcome 90% of socio-economic factors. Every kid CAN succeed. Third, the kids who will learn to think in spite of bad teaching are going to grow up to be lawyers, politicians, concerned citizens - and they're going to believe that the education system is ineffectual and rotten at the core (and if we allow that to happen still, they're absolutely right, because we know better.) Ontario has seen what happens when a politician comes to power who has a grudge against the education system, and uses it to mobilize a groundswell of support for himself and against those greedy teachers who always have their hands out for more money but never deliver the goods. The education system is still recovering from those years, and that guy was voted out of office in 2003.
The time is right, the setting is right, our current premier is on the side of educators and supporting a sea change in education - we need to do it NOW.
no subject
If anywhere in North America can succeed at bucking the Traditional Schools model, it's right here, because we're more than halfway there already.
BTW, I don't believe it's a good idea to believe smart kids will learn on their own and everyone else never will. First, it assigns my job to total irrelevance, and I've got too strong a sense of self-preservation for that. :) Second, it's not backed up by research - good teaching for five years in a row does overcome 90% of socio-economic factors. Every kid CAN succeed. Third, the kids who will learn to think in spite of bad teaching are going to grow up to be lawyers, politicians, concerned citizens - and they're going to believe that the education system is ineffectual and rotten at the core (and if we allow that to happen still, they're absolutely right, because we know better.) Ontario has seen what happens when a politician comes to power who has a grudge against the education system, and uses it to mobilize a groundswell of support for himself and against those greedy teachers who always have their hands out for more money but never deliver the goods. The education system is still recovering from those years, and that guy was voted out of office in 2003.
The time is right, the setting is right, our current premier is on the side of educators and supporting a sea change in education - we need to do it NOW.